Throwing away, recycling, or questioning this system?Some products live forever, are even passed on from generation to generation. Others have a short life, are not used a second time, but land in the garbage. Only rarely an equivalent product emerges from them. But is a long life always the better one? Are there applications and situations where disposable products are more sensible, more sustainable and even better than durable products?It was the task to develop deliberately short-life usage concepts, which are still or precisely for this reason sustainable.Rethinking, lavishly producing, consumption as a sustainability strategy? - provocation or responseWith external partners, concepts, materials, services and application scenarios were compared and assessed with regard to their sustainability, new conceptions, and sensible scenarios were developed that are surprising - not just because they are designed to be discarded.

The technique of creating a vacuum allows to construct temporary objects in a sustainable way. The different filling materials are non-permanently bonded together, since the stability is created solely by the evacuation of air. Thereby the use of new material is minimized. As filling materials even ever-present ordinary objects can be used and reused afterwards: due to the non-permanent connection, the components are fully separable: The foil is recyclable, the filling material even reusable.
Different use-cases are demonstrated:

a temporary but fully functional hammer, made of spaghetti, a 50 cent coin and a handful of lentils

‘Verblasst’ is a speculative concept that focuses on temporary information within the context of advertising in public space. It plays with the idea of generating information with light as medium. At the center of the visualisation, in form of a short videoclip, are surfaces which are coated with photochromic pigments. As a result advertisements and offers can be projected to this surfaces. The exposed spots change their color and after some time the information vanishes. The surface is ready to be exposed again.
To formulate our concept we asked two questions.
What if the fading could be slowed down and the information vanishes after one day or one week?
What if we could adjust the kind of light the pigments are reacting on?

reduce – a monomaterial approach
Marcel Bohr

We want to own and consume without any limits. But which approach prevents products like electronic devices from having such a big ecological footprint? One way is to replace electronics by a monomaterial that is able to resemble its properties. Thereby the idea of a kitchen scale was developed which works through material stress.

a FAN - designing a sustainable fan
Lukas Unertl

ToToGoToast - a toast that needs no toaster -
Julia Ernst

Do we need to rethink sustainability?
Some facts:
Thin foil packaging is not being recycled. Neither is the packaging of toasts. After use, it is being transported by a truck to a waste incineration plant where it is being burnt in order to at least regain the energy from that foil.
At the same time, we plug in a toaster at home to toast the toast. The toaster is made of an enormous amount of precious materials, which are processed in a way that hinders recycling. And it uses electrical energy when toasting.
So what if we burn the packaging directly on the table and thereby toast the toaster? Why not save all the hassle, materials and transportation?
This proposition is truly possible – by using PE, a common packaging plastic that burns without toxic byproducts.
From an environmental point of view this concept makes sense: One toaster burning 50 toasts (including the toaster, the used energy, the toasts, the packaging, the transportation) has an environmental footprint of 77,44 MIPS, whereas 100 ToToGoToasts (including the packaging) only have a footprint of 1,3 MIPS.
What does this venture mean for us as consumers, for the toaster industry, for or general perception of sustainability?

Soak
Fabian Hütter

The concept of soak features a way to eliminate the effort and the negative environmental effect of printing, by letting the product print itself during the actual time of use.

The first idea deals with a children’s plaster: The flowing blood is used to „print“ an image like a dolphin just by using a blind pressed padding. Blood that usually has an unpleasant character is transformed into a positive surprising and thereby cheering effect.

The same principle is transferred to a sports shirt: While doing sports the body produces sweat that can be used to „print“ a logo on one’s shirt. This effect not only motivates to sweat more, it is also more sustainable: A combination of two different cellulose fibers allows for this effect. The resulting monomaterial shirt can be easily recycled in comparison to those with prints.

LivingLight – a handfull of light
Jonas Jentsch

We are living in a world in which light is no longer a laboriously produced necessity, but an abundantly present commodity. But this commodity is not without consequences; it is payed by the overly taxed resources of nature. And despite all the progress we are still using an antiquated system, based on the useful but inflexible application of electricity. A system that is limited either by access to the power grid or a power storage.
Imagine a light without bulb or fixture; a light that does not need fire nor electricity. A light that can‘t burn or destroy; a light that doesn‘t need switching on or off.
A light that grows. A light that lives.
What would change if the development of luminescent bacteria was so advanced that we could substitute our need of lighting by using them? If they could be grown not only in laboratories by specialists but by everybody at home? If we could use them whenever and wherever we want; take them with us or spray them without fear of doing any harm.
In what way would our relationship to our use of light change if it was a living organism cared for by ourselves instead of this technical thing? Would the rate of light pollution grow as steadily as it does at this moment? Would the amount of power we waste in turning the night into day still increase?
Or is it possible to start a change in our dealing with light?

activity packs
Kevin Strüber & Max Michael Stalter

This project deals with the aspect of social sustainability. Activity packs help you on your path towards a healthy mind by harmonizing you with yourself and the environment. Every pack includes instructions and materials necessary for a certain choreography. Every pack concerns itself with a topic of mental health. Every user makes his/her own experiences. We act from the assumption that every human being needs to be at peace with themselves and their environment to be able to turn towards their planet and their fellow human beings with true empathy.

abstract of instruction, pack #5
Carrying
Having
Being
Find a quiet place. Spread out the cotton sheet. Weigh the sheet down with the 4 stones. Now put everything you have with you and on you onto the sheet. Take your time to find the right space for every item. Now lie down, naked as you are, with the items on the sheet. Take as long as you need. After you are more than you have, stand up. Look at your belongings for a while. Now roll up the sheet with the items inside. Grab it at both ends and lift it up as high as you can.
Say:
This is what I carry,
I am more than I have

Pose – a wedding dress grown of mycelium
Sophie Turner

Weddings have a big environmental impact on our natural environment. From the many guests who travel to the location, to the masses of food, loud music, the rings, and the wedding dress. Considering the fact that often the dress is used for just one day and then spends a life time in the closet, I propose a concept for a disposable wedding dress. The dress is made out of mycelium - the roots of fungi - a highly sustainable, fast-growing material. It does not require many resources and can be harvested almost everywhere, without infringing on the space we need for growing food.
Aside from the obvious economical benefits, the dress is perfect for the latest current trend, the post-wedding photoshoot, at which you are likely going to destroy the dress, but have great wedding pictures in return. The mycelium dress comes with special effects; these you can choose during the many shopping trips. For example, it could glow in the dark, it can lose some patches when in water, creating so a new pattern, or include the bloom of flowers as the dress comes in to contact with water. After a shoot in a lake or in the sea the dress can‘t be used again, but that‘s ok, the wedding is over and there are breathtaking pictures as a memory. With the added extras in combination with the fact that the dress is grown only for you gives the garment a tremendous personal attachment. They make for a great, unique appearance that the bride can share with friends and family through sending photos or publishing them on social networks.

MudBud – a clean way to play with dirt
Netta Nahardiya

There are many qualities to mud for children, other then being advantageous to the immune system, it encourages creation and imagination, develops the brain, and more. Many kids these days don’t get to play with mud. The main reason is that the mud is outside, and the outside might be full of unpleasant dirt. As parents we would want to keep our kids safe, or “clean”, we would rather buy the “clean” brand new plastic car toy then to let our kids play with dirt. MudBud is dirt for the parents eye to buy.

Vitamin-C Self-Check
Ferdinand Hintz

In order to enable people – especially children – to check the quality of their food and their personal health, I developed a simple and playful self-test to initially check one’s own vitamin C household. The concept is based on the fact, that vitamins have the property that their surplus is excreted by the body through the urine. If the body‘s household is saturated, the rest ends up in the toilet. A toilet gel serves as a color indicator to show possible saturation. The gel dissolves with each refill just like ordinary toilet gels. Yet, its colour changes from blue to transparent in the occurrence of vitamin C in the urine. Through the immediate, everyday self-test an awareness of balanced nutrition is being generated. It is my intention to arouse the curiosity to generally question one’s vitamin status and promote preventive doctor visits. Finally the awareness of real knowledge on well-balanced nutrition rises.

downhill – a sledge out of ice and snow
Martha Sophie Kikowatz

Out of the idea of equating the life span of the sledge to the useful life, two solutions emerged. The use of ice and snow limits the existence of the products to the time and place of use.

The sledge out of ice: Prepare at home in a re-usable mould that is being filled with water and left to harden in the freezer. When it is cold enough outside, the various parts are similarly assembled and connected with water. After sledging, the sledge can be left behind at the end of the slope.

The sleigh bag, perfect for a hike in the snow, the sleigh bag can be carried almost weightless in the pocket up the mountain. Once at the top, it is unfolded and filled with snow. At the end of the track, the bag is emptied and packed away again in the pocket.

1k – a one thousand mile shoe
by Louis Möckel

The average walking distance a human walks within one year is about one thousand miles. This shoe is designed to not last any longer than this. Considering, that we attend to buy a new pair of shoes each season and so create huge amounts of non-recyclable waste, this model offers a sustainable alternative to modern sneaker footwear. It consists of only two materials and can be disassembled into its raw materials by just one step. Through the reduction of materials, the manufacturing process is broken down to one injection moulding process and no glue is used. The shape of the shoe adapts to the customer’s feet by tightening the shoelaces individually. By distributing it through a modern selling-concept, it allows the user to buy only one pair each by handing in his worn out one to create a circular material flow. The modular design serves the opportunity to individualize the model to each customers needs and taste.

Paper Shoe
by Luis Kucharski

Sneakers are disposable products that usually do not survive more than one season. Nevertheless, they are not designed to be recycled easily.

Paper shoes should be a sustainable alternative without directly appealing to the consumer's behaviour. After use, they can be thrown into the paper bin.